No, Please, God, No
by KuroDark
Summary: Hinata needs to become more confident. Hidan wants to become less aggressive. When both wish upon the same star, something very strange happens that will change Konoha and Kakuzu forever.
1. Chapter 1

Hinata Hyuuga stared at herself in the mirror.

"Hello, Naruto," she said firmly, gazing determinedly at her reflection, "I was wondering if you like to go on a date with me." She flashed herself a dazzling smile.

"What are you doing?" came the voice of her cousin behind her. She gasped and whipped around.

"Neji-san! I..I was…just..um..," she blushed and continued stuttering.

_Dammit, Hinata_, she thought angrily, _Stop being embarrassed. You are smart, you are cool, you are sexy. _

Neji rolled his eyes.

"Whatever. Just hurry up. Hanabi wants to leave." He turned and left, leaving her still stuttering.

Hinata hung her head and swore quietly. This is how it always was. She was firm and confident in the mirror, but around others she was a nervous wreck. She'd tried everything to steady her nerves: herbal remedies, trips to spas, counselors, none of it seemed to help.

With one last sigh and glance in the mirror, she tied her forehead protector around her neck and went off to find her sister and cousin.

xXxXx

Several long hours later, Hinata dragged herself back into her house; her side throbbing where a man had run into her while being pursued by an angry prostitute. The man had looked very much like Jiraya-sensei, but she hadn't got a very good glance at him.

Neji stalked in behind her, somehow still looking as perfectly together as he had that morning, with an expression of cool disinterest on his pale face. He had spent the entire day telling Hanabi that he was not in the mood to train and he would not chuck a casual kunai or two for her to dodge.

Hanabi was pouting.

"If I'm no longer needed, I'm going to retire for the evening," Hinata murmured timidly. When neither of the other two responded, she quietly slipped away and disappeared into her room.

As soon as the door shut behind her, her shy demeanor dropped and a heavy scowl crossed her face. She stalked about for a few moments and aimed a kick at her bed. Despite everything, she had still been unable to speak up. She knew that if she never told people what she was feeling and made them notice her, no one would ever respect her, but it was so hard.

She paced angrily for a while before giving up on her malice and opening the doors leading out onto her balcony. It was a beautiful, clear night. The air was cool and the sky was cloudless. She couldn't help but smile as a gentle breeze wormed its way around her.

Hinata pushed her hair from her forehead and stared up at the sky. She saw a faint glimmer in her peripheral vision and she turned to see the first star of the evening peering down at her. She considered it for a moment before deciding that she would wish upon it.

"Star light, star bright. The first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight. I wish that I can be more confident and aggressive. I wish that some miracle will happen to make me able to become noticed."

Unfortunately for Hinata, God was in one of those moods. The sort of mood where He grants wishes. Only, He grants them HIS way.

xXxXx

"I swear to God, Hidan. If you complain about your hair one more time, I will kill you," growled Kakuzu angrily. Hidan pouted in the most masculine way possible.

"Look, if I don't have great hair, I have to try a bit to get bitches, and I am not in the mood to try."

"I'm in the mood to shove that fucking scythe up your ass," Kakuzu snarled. Hidan continued pouting.

"Is this about that hooker? Look, man, I told you, I didn't know you were saving that money for food."

Kakuzu rolled his eyes and strode away at a brisk pace.

"Hey! Wait up!" Hidan exclaimed, jogging a bit to catch up, "Honestly, I can't understand what you're so angry about anyway. It's not like we can't steal food."

Kakuzu glowered at him, "What do you think we are? Common criminals? Petty thieves?"

Hidan stared back blankly. Kakuzu fought the urge to roll his eyes again.

"No. We are proud members of the Akatsuki. We do not stoop to the level of immature hoodlums. We pay for the goods we require with the money we have earned."

"Please. Talking like you're a fucking saint. Maybe you need a reminder; you steal people's hearts, Mother Theresa"

"That is completely different, Hidan," replied Kakuzu stiffly, "The fact remains that if you don't lose your overly aggressive attitude, you will end up alone and friendless."

"Whatever," Hidan sulked.

xXxXx

Later that evening, Hidan found himself sitting outside of a cave, staring up at the sky, listening to Kakuzu snore quietly.

He was unsure why, but something about what Kakuzu had said earlier had struck a chord him.

_You will end up alone and friendless_. Kakuzu's words echoed through his head.

Hidan shifted uncomfortably and studied the full moon.

"So what?" he muttered to himself, "It's not like I need friends. Especially not if they're anything like _you_, Kakuzu," he snapped, directing his words towards Kakuzu's sleeping form, which was hidden in the darkness of the cave.

For some inexplicable reason, he immediately felt bad about his outburst; even though he knew Kakuzu had not heard it.

"Sorry," he muttered.

Following a few more minutes of staring at the cloudless sky, he saw the first star of the evening glimmer into view. After contemplating it for a while and having a fierce mental battle, he decided to do something he had not done since he was five.

"Uh…star light…star bright -- how the fuck does this go – uh...first star I see tonight…I…uh…fuck…wish I may, I wish I might. Be granted this fucking wish. Um…I'd like to be less aggressive and more...uh…I don't know. Uh…kind? Whatever. Fuck it."

And with that, he fell unconscious.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters.

A/N: Just to clear things up, I was not planning on making this a HidaHina fic. Later on I might change that, however, give it a bit. Righto, let's go!

xXxXx

Hidan woke up on a balcony. Which was strange, because he was fairly certain he not fallen asleep on one.

He glanced around and immediately determined that, no, he had not fallen asleep here. In fact, he had never been here.

Feeling extremely insecure, an odd thing for Hidan, he cautiously stood. It was then that he noticed that he was a good foot too short. This was also strange.

He then glanced down at himself, trying to determine why his height was suddenly diminished. Unfortunately, this first thing he saw was a few strands of black hair and a pair of breasts.

"Fuck."

xXxXx

Hinata Hyuuga woke up to find herself inside a cave. She really could not understand what she was doing in a cave, of all places, but decided to roll with it.

"Right," she muttered.

Or at least, she tried to mutter. Instead, a man seemed to have read her mind and said it for her.

"Um…excuse me, but who are you?" she attempted to question.

Once again, the man beat her to it.

"I'm Hinata Hyuuga," she said politely.

But the man beat her again.

Now she was getting irritated.

"You are not. I am," she snapped.

As she expected, the man said this before she could. But she did not expect a different male voice to come from outside of the cave.

"Hidan? Are you talking to yourself?"

Hinata froze. Hidan? The crazy mass murderer? He was here?

She let her gaze slide over the blackness behind her and tried to pick out his shape. Being unable to do so, she let chakra flood to her eyes.

"Byakugan," she whispered.

Nothing happened.

Since Hinata was not a stupid girl, it was then that it occurred to her that Hidan was not in the cave with her, Hidan was her.

xXxXx

"Excuse me?" came a scandalized voice from behind him.

He whipped around to see a tall boy with long black hair staring at him.

"Since when do you swear?"

To Hidan's immense relief, the boy sounded mildly amused. Hidan felt that it would be best to not let anyone know that he was not the girl he appeared to be until he could figure out what was going on.

"Oh, you know…," he replied idly, throwing the boy what he thought was a flirtatious smile.

Apparently it wasn't, because the boy appeared more disturbed by this then he had by the swearing.

"Right…well, Inuzaka-san is waiting for you downstairs," he said.

"Excellent. Who is that again?" Hidan asked, hoping that it would not be an odd question.

Unfortunately, it appeared that it was, since the boy's frown deepened.

"Kiba… Honestly, don't you know that names of your own teammates?" he questioned.

"Well, of course," Hidan replied in the most offended tone he could muster, "It just slipped my mind, that's all. And…um…do you know what I will be doing with Kiba?"

"How would I know? You're probably training or something," the boy responded irritably, "Just hurry up, would you?"

With that he turned and stalked away, his hair twitching impudently.

"Asshole," Hidan muttered.

xXxXx

Hinata was frozen to the spot, unsure of exactly what she should do.

The other man, who must be Kakuzu, appeared to be coming inside. And he'd know right away that Hidan wasn't Hidan if he had any sense. That is, unless Hinata disguised the change. Unless she could pull off Hidan's personality well enough to fool even Kakuzu. That shouldn't be so hard, right? All she had to do was act like a homicidal maniac.

"Hidan?" came Kakuzu's voice as he entered the cave, "What the hell are you doing? I mean, not only do I wake up this morning to find you un_conscious_ outside of the cave, but now you're talking to yourself? What _happened_ last night?"

"Um…nothing," Hinata replied.

_Oh, fantastic_, she thought sarcastically, _really witty_. _I'm sure that's exACTly what Hidan would have said._

Kakuzu seemed to be thinking upon the same lines, because when she looked up to see him peering down at her, he had an expression of confusion and, perhaps, slight concern in his eyes. However, that might have just been because his eyes were ridiculously unnatural.

Hinata shrunk under his gaze. Then she realized that that was definitely un-Hidan-ish behavior. After all, homicidal maniacs don't shrink under gazes.

And so, she did the only thing she could think of that homicidal maniacs did do.

She punched Kakuzu as hard as she could, straight in the mouth.

Which, in retrospect, was surprisingly hard. Kakuzu testified to this by flying back several feet before skidding across the ground.

His mask had come off when Hinata had punched him and he was now half sitting up while wiping blood from his mouth. He seemed surprised.

"You…you punched me," he said finally, his eyes wide.

"Yeah, I did...asshole," Hinata replied gruffly, fighting desperately against the urge to apologize.

Kakuzu's eyes narrowed, and next second, Hinata found herself staring at her body from several feet away.

Needless to say, she started screaming.

xXxXx

Hidan tramped down the stairs wearing a dress he had found in the girl's closet. He wondered vaguely why the few servants, or whatever they were, he passed seemed to be staring at him. There was no way they could know that he wasn't who he appeared, right?

He reached the bottom of the stairs and rounded a random corner to find the boy with long hair talking to another boy with scruffy brown hair, a white dog, and weird triangle things on his face. This had to be Kiba.

"Hello, Kiba," Hidan called, hoping this was a normal thing for her to say.

Both of the boys turned to him. Neither said anything, just stared.

"Uh…hi, Hinata-kun," Kiba said finally.

"What are you wearing?" the other boy said suddenly, rather rudely.

"A dress, dumbass," Hidan shot at him. Honestly, this boy was so obnoxious.

Unfortunately, this seemed to be something that this Hinata person would not have done, judging by the uncomfortable silence.

"Uh, I mean…a dress," Hidan said politely.

"Right…, well…" the boy trailed off, seeming unsure of himself for the first time.

"Let's go, Hinata-kun," said the Kiba in a good-natured tone.

The white dog barked in what appeared to be agreement.

Hidan immediately decided that he liked them both.

"Ok," he replied warmly, striding over.

Kiba held open the door in a gentlemanly fashion and Hidan strolled through, shooting a cold look at the long-haired boy as he passed.

"Right, see you later, Hyuuga-san," he heard Kiba say to boy, before shutting the door.

The two of the calmly walked for a time, Hidan remaining a step behind Kiba, so as not to appear lost. Though he doubted Kiba would have noticed, the kid seemed oblivious to everything but his dog.

"Excuse me, Kiba-kun," Hidan said after a while.

Kiba looked round, "Yeah?"

"Could you please tell me what Hyuuga-san's problem is?" he asked.

Kiba stared at him and Hinata feared that he was going to call him out on being someone else. To Hidan's intense relief, he did not. Rather, he let loose a great bark of laughter.

"Neji? He's always been like that. But, really, he's not that bad, you two usually get along pretty well," he replied, grinning.

"Oh," was all Hidan could think of.

"And since when do you refer to your own cousin as 'Hyuuga-san'," inquired Kiba, "and since when do you swear, or wear dresses, or not know what Neji's problem is?"

Hidan froze. Well, he kept walking, but inside he was frozen. Had this boy already figured out his secret?

"'Cause it's really funny," he finished.

Safe. The kid had no idea.

"Oh, you know," replied Hidan lamely, hoping something would happen, so he could avoid answering.

"Hinata-kun!" cried a voice. Hidan and Kiba looked over to see a blonde boy wearing all orange running over.

Hidan could barely disguise his wince of disgust.

"Uh, hi," he called back.

The boy skidded to a halt in front of them.

"Hi, Kiba-kun," he said to the boy, "Hi, Akamaru," he said to the dog.

"'Sup, Naruto?" acknowledged Kiba, while the dog barked.

"Oh, you know, going to get some ramen," Naruto grinned.

Hidan furrowed his brow. Why had he heard the name Naruto before? Where had he heard it?

"Typical Naruto," Kiba was saying.

Naruto simply shrugged.

"Anyway, you look really nice, Hinata-kun," he said with a smile.

Hidan gave him a blank look. He had been immersed in his thoughts, trying to remember who Naruto was.

"Oh, right, thanks," he replied finally.

There was a very long awkward silence.

"Ok, well, I'm gonna go eat and find Sakura-chan," Naruto said finally, before dashing past them, hitting Hidan's shoulder as he passed. "Sorry," he called back, still running.

"Watch where you're going, fucktard!" Hidan yelled without thinking.

Kiba simply stared.

"I mean…it's alright."

This was going to be a lot harder than he had thought.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I disclaim Naruto.

xXxXx

"Shut up!" roared Kakuzu.

Hinata promptly stopped screaming. However, she could not deny that her, no, Hidan's neck hurt quite a lot. After all, it had just been forcibly removed from her…Hidan's body.

"I…I'm not dead," she said finally. She was shocked. Hidan was immortal? He was a mass-murdering fuckhead and on top of that he was immortal? That's it, the world was screwed. That is, if he ever got his body back.

"Of course you aren't," replied Kakuzu, shooting her an odd look, "you've had your head chopped off tons of times, why should now be any different?"

"Uh…no, reason," she muttered vaguely.

Kakuzu looked very suspicious and seemed to be on the verge of saying something.

"So, are you gonna fucking bring my body over here or what?" she growled hurriedly, when his mouth started to open.

He snapped it shut and shot her one last odd look before strolling over and grabbing her by the hair.

"Ow! Hey, that hurts!" she cried.

"Get over it," grumbled Kakuzu," If you weren't so annoying I wouldn't have to cut your head off and you wouldn't be in pain."

Hinata could think of nothing to say to that, so she simply glowered.

Being a mass-murdering fuckhead was surprisingly easier than she had thought it would be.

xXxXx

Hidan was sulking.

Kiba would not stop shooting him odd looks, and it was getting on his nerves.

Why did the girl he have to switch bodies with end up being a complete twat?

"Oh, there's Shino," Kiba's voice brought him out of his reverie.

Hidan looked up to the see the sketchiest character he had ever had the misfortune to meet. And this was saying something, seeing as the Akatsuki was basically comprised of sketchy characters .

"Uh, hi," he said to the hooded boy.

The boy merely nodded.

"Right, well," said Kiba after the exchange was over, "shall we go train?"

Hidan nodded gamely, wondering what exactly this little girl could do. The Shino character did not appear to have heard, or, if he did, he did not react.

There was an awkward pause and then Kiba led the way into the woods. Shino seemed to just be drifting along, not particularly interested in anything. Frankly, Hidan could see why. There wasn't much to look at in this God awful place.

At last they came to a clearing that was just as boring as the rest of the woods. A horny pair of rabbits was enjoying the sunshine in the middle.

Hidan stared at them with disgust and, oddly enough, jealousy. It had only been an hour and he already missed the dominance of his body. If he had not been in the company of two boys who seemed to expect something from him, he would have broken down sobbing. Not that he would ever admit it.

"Ok then. How 'bout me and Shino take on you, Hinata," Kiba suggested.

"Shino and I," Hidan corrected absentmindedly.

_Wait, woah. Where the fuck did that come from?_ he thought, _since when do I know grammar rules? _

Fortunately, neither Kiba nor Shino seemed to find this odd.

"Whatever. You wanna take us on?" he asked again.

"Uh…sure," replied Hidan. He really wished he knew what this girl's personality was like. Making it up as he went along was getting pretty difficult.

"Excellent," grinned Kiba, "let's do this."

And with that, Kiba and Shino took off into the forest, leaving Hidan alone with the pair of horny rabbits.

"Great," he muttered.

xXxXx

Hinata sat very still while Kakuzu sewed her neck back on. This was, without a doubt, the singular most disturbing thing that had ever happened to her. Not only did she get put into someone else's body, but she got put into the body of an immortal. An immortal who was also a wanted S-class criminal. An immortal S-class criminal who had an extremely temperamental partner who would cut her head off without the slightest hesitation.

The only person she could think of who would possibly have been worse to body transferred with would have been Uchiha Sasuke. Or maybe Neji.

"There," Kakuzu said, finally finishing with his thread, if that's what it really was.

"Thanks," replied Hinata gruffly, "Of course I wouldn't have to thank you if you hadn't cut my head off in the first place…"

Kakuzu lifted a kunai in warning, "Don't make me do it again."

Hinata lifted her hands in appeasement.

"Ok, ok. But seriously," she said, "way to overreact."

Kakuzu shot her a glare, "You know perfectly well that I have a short-temper. Now shut the hell up and let's go. I want to collect the bounty before the end of the week."

"Wait, what?," Hinata asked, "Bounty? What bounty?"

"You really are a moron," responded Kakuzu, shaking his head, "The bounty on Hatake Kakashi? You know, the non-Uchiha with Sharingan?"

"Kakashi-san?! We're going to kill Kakashi-san?" Hinata cried in shock.

"Since when do you care? Or call him 'san'?" inquired Kakuzu, looking suspicious again.

"Since, I...well…," she trailed off.

"Whatever. And once we finish that, we can get the Kyuubi brat, seeing as Itachi and Kisame failed," finished Kakuzu.

"Naruto-kun!" she shrieked in dismay.

"Yeah, that's his name. Naruto. Anyway, hurry it up, I want to get to Konoha already."

This fell upon deaf ears because, at the mention of killing her one true love, Hinata sank once again to the ground in a dead faint.

"Damn it," muttered Kakuzu.

xXxXx

Hidan barely contained a swear as he dodged a kunai thrown by one of the two he was currently battling. His annoyance was mainly focused upon the fact that this girl lacked any real strength, had difficulty performing the acrobatic feats that he executed with ease, and was not in possession of his scythe, which he missed dearly.

However he did have a few smug thoughts following along the lines of this being why he was an S-class criminal and she was not. Not only was she far too weak to be, but, judging by other's reactions towards her, she had a completely incompetent attitude. Being surprised by a couple of swears, honestly, what did this girl do if everyone thought it was odd for her to even speak at all?

His thoughts were suddenly distracted by what appeared to be a very large swarm of insects.

"Great," he muttered, turning and running, "I fucking love bugs."

He could not help but wonder where the other boy had gotten off to. Him and his pesky dog who he no longer liked, after both had tried to relieve themselves on him in the middle of battle. Kiba claimed it was an attack, but Hidan doubted it. No self respecting ninja would have an attack that involved transforming themselves into a dog and urinating on the opponent.

Suddenly, a brand new swarm of insects appeared in front of him.

"Oh, joy," he said sarcastically, coming to a halt and watching as he was steadily surrounded by the creeping creatures.

He thought hard, considering what he knew about this girl. She had to have some sort of power, after all she was a ninja and Konoha would not let someone with no talent whatsoever become one.

Wait, her cousin, his last name was Hyuuga. That meant that she must be a Hyuuga. Hinata Hyuuga.

Hidan took a moment to congratulate himself on his brilliance, before turning back to the problem at hand.

He had once read a book on the history of the Hyuuga clan, back when he was in school. It had been a pretty boring book, but he still remembered bits of it.

'The Hyuuga clan is quite sufficient when it comes to battle. Although never specifically proven, it is believed that all the members of the clan have the blood-line eye technique called Byakugan, which allows the user to see 360° with the exception of a small blind spot at the back of the neck above the third thoracic vertebra. The Byakugan also allows the user the ability to look through solid objects and use a small degree of telescopic sight. The third and, arguably, greatest trait of the Byakugan is to give the user the ability to see chakra. With this ability, the Hyuuga clan is extremely adept at using the Gentle Fist style of Taijutsu.'

After that, it had gone into a long explanation of the Gentle Fist style that Hidan could not recall particularly well, as he had been falling asleep while reading it.

But, Byakugan, that was interesting. If he could only figure out how to use it, he'd be home free.

"Byakugan," he said hopefully.

Nothing happened.

"Ok, that didn't work," he murmured thoughtfully, stepping on a bug that crawled to close, "Maybe if I use chakra or something."

He closed his eyes and allowed himself to locate the core of the girl's power. A lazy grin crossed his face. He took some of the chakra that he found and channeled up to his head, focusing it on the eyes. He opened his eyes.

"Byakugan," he said calmly. Immediately, his vision morphed and changed. He could see. Not just the sight of an average person, he could see how a Hyuuga was meant to see. He could see Kiba and Akamaru sitting in a tree ten meters away, he could see Shino standing in the midst of the flecks of chakra that were the bugs.

A laugh escaped his throat.

"Bring it," he muttered, before racing forward through the haze of insects, straight to where Shino stood.

He threw a punch at Shino's face, but the boy dodged it. Immediately, Hidan spun into a kick that Shino blocked. Irritated, Hidan leapt into the air and rained kunai upon the boy who once again dodged.

"Enough," came Shino's voice.

Hidan landed lightly on his feet.

"What? You give up?" he asked.

Shino shrugged and the bugs that surrounded them seeped away.

"When did you learn to move like that?" called Kiba as he jogged over, Akamaru running beside him.

"A long time ago, dickhead," Hidan said, rolling his eyes, "Wait, I mean…what do you mean?"

Kiba seemed confused, "Well, you couldn't flip around like that yesterday."

"I'm a ninja, of course I could flip around like that," Hidan replied shortly.

"Naw, you could do flips and stuff, but you weren't THAT good. It's like you became a totally different person overnight," Kiba observed.

"How's the crack?"

"What?"

"Well, obviously you must be smoking some crack if you think I became someone else overnight," Hidan drawled.

"What's crack?"

Hidan stared at him.

"Never mind."

"Ok," Kiba looked down at his dog, "Well, I'm gonna take Akamaru for a walk. See you guys later." He waved to the two of them and proceeded to leap into the trees with the mutt.

"Like you didn't both attempt to empty your bowels on me earlier," Hidan muttered under his breath, watching the pair.

"What's your name?" said Shino suddenly.

Hidan looked at him slowly, "Excuse me?"

"What's your name?" Shino repeated.

"Hinata Hyuuga," replied Hidan a little smugly, "Shouldn't you know that by now?"

"Very good. But I meant your name, not the name of the person you're impersonating," Shino said casually.

"…What are you talking about? You don't seriously believe the whole 'becoming someone else overnight' shit, do you?"

"I'm not stupid, I'm afraid. Now, what's your name?"

Hidan said nothing.

Shino looked at him steadily, "I know you aren't Hinata."


	4. Chapter 4

"If you don't get up in five seconds I'm going to remove your head again, and I will refuse to put it back on," said Kakuzu, sounding very annoyed.

"S-sorry," stuttered Hinata, prying open her eyes to see Kakuzu's very annoyed gaze, "I'm sorry, Kakuzu-kun," she finished in a small voice.

Kakuzu stared at her. For a second, he appeared on the verge of saying something, but instead he simply shook his head and stood.

"Let's go," he said gruffly. He swiftly left the cave, without waiting for Hinata to follow.

Hinata got unsteadily to her feet and trotted forward a few steps. She felt oddly graceful. This she considered to be very strange, seeing as Hidan did not appear to be a very elegant man. Actually, now that she thought about it, she had no idea what he looked like. She had never seen his face.

She pondered this as she continued to shuffle forward. All off a sudden, her foot hit something hard that skittered across the floor. She looked down to see two items: a forehead protector from Yugakure and a long chain with an odd symbol on it. She frowned and picked both up. The forehead protector she tied around her neck, without second thought.

"What's this mean?" she questioned aloud, holding up the long chain and studying the strange triangular symbol.

"Are you fucking serious right now? Did you lose your memory in that last bout of unconsciousness or something?" came the startled voice of Kakuzu from the entrance of the cave.

Hinata jerked her head up and looked guiltily at him.

"I-I…um...," stuttered Hinata vaguely, "Well, I…maybe a little?"

Kakuzu stared at her, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but…are you ok?"

Hinata blinked, "Um...yes, I think," she mumbled insecurely.

Kakuzu seemed to be in shock. She wasn't sure that he was going to live through this. Though, now that she thought back on it, she did seem to recall reading in a bingo book about how Kakuzu had several hearts. She was not sure of this was true, but it was intriguing nonetheless.

After a few moments of awkward silence, during which Kakuzu seemed to be determining whether or not he should take violent action, Hinata decided to break the silence.

"Um…could you…please…tell me what it is?" she asked quietly.

Kakuzu blinked and narrowed his eyes.

"It's your Jashin symbol," he replied after a long silence.

"Um…what's, uh, Jashin?"

At this point, Kakuzu decided that violent action was indeed necessary.

xXxXx

"I…," Hidan started, desperately trying to think of an argument.

"Don't even bother trying to refute that, because it's obvious," Shino snapped, "The only reason Kiba didn't notice is because he's half retarded. Now, you are who?"

Hidan couldn't help but feel a pout starting to come on.

"Naruto didn't notice," he muttered sulkily.

Shino rolled his eyes. Not that Hidan could see this, as they were covered with sunglasses.

"Sadly, Kiba surpasses Naruto when it comes to intelligence, so fooling him is no great feat. Now if you would please reveal your identity."

Hidan stared sulkily at him, before finally thrusting out his chin and turning his face away.

"Hidan," he muttered.

"Pardon?"

"My name is Hidan," he repeated, "Are you fucking stupid or something?"

Shino shook his head in amazement.

"Hidan…the immortal, psychotic, mass-murderer?" he questioned quietly.

"Well, how many other fucking Hidan's do you know? I'm fucking one of a kind, bitch."

"That's obvious," Shino muttered.

Hidan scoffed at this.

"What a fucking douche. Are you gonna help me or not?"

"Excuse me? Help you? Why on earth would I do that," inquired Shino, "That would be considered aiding and abetting a criminal and I'd rather not be jailed, thank you very much," he continued.

Hidan glared at him.

"Look, do you want to see your fucking pussy of a friend again or not? 'Cuz if you want her back you're gonna have to help me."

For some inexplicable reason, Shino buried his chin in his coat and turned his face away. Hidan could have sworn he had seen a blush color the cheeks of the shinobi in the second before his face was averted. He scowled again.

There was a long pause, during which Shino seemed to be deeply contemplating something. Hidan found himself becoming extremely irritated with the waiting and so was sighing loudly, crossing his arms, and tapping his foot repeatedly. Unfortunately, this seemed to have no effect whatsoever on the speed of Shino's decision making.

"Alright," Shino said finally, looking at Hidan again, "I'll help you. But only if you do something for me."

"What the fuck?!" Hidan cried, "This is not a fucking bargaining program. Here's what I'll do for you, shithead. I won't kill you or your little friend. That fucking good enough?"

Shino's frown deepened. Hidan took a moment to ponder whether the boy ever smiled.

"I want you to promise not to harm anyone in Konoha," he replied softly, ignoring Hidan's outburst.

Hidan scoffed once again.

"You're fucking shitting me right now. You seriously think I'm gonna let you bunch of pussies continue to infect the world with your bullshit 'Will of Fire' and just leave you be? Yeah, right. Hate to break it to you, kid, but Konoha is slated for destruction. Once our fucking douchebag of a leader gives the order, you guys are done for. And I am sure as hell not sitting out that day."

"That's fine," Shino said calmly, "In that case, you can remain in the body of my pussy friend for the rest of your life, see if I care."

Hidan was struck silent by this. He imagined spending the rest of his life as this girl. Dealing with her jackass of a cousin, her mentally challenged friends, and her complete incompetence when it came to, well, everything. Right then was the closest Hidan had ever come to completely breaking down and crying in his adult life. It was something he hadn't done since he had turned five.

"Fine," he said gruffly," I'll leave your fucking city alone. For a while, anyway."

"That's good enough for now," replied Shino with what seemed to be the smallest conspiratorial smile.

Hidan immediately noted that the boy did, in fact, smile. Which was good to know, because even serial killers like to see a smile thrown in their direction every once in a while. And God knows no one in the Akatsuki had been, or ever would be, throwing him any.

"Then get me the fuck out of this body," he growled, ignoring the strange urge to smile back and tap his nose. Maybe even throw in a wink.

"Easy now," Shino stated, lifting one hand in supplication and folding the other over his chest, "I'll help you, but first you have to tell me exactly what you did to make this happen in the first place."

Hidan blushed.

"Well, it started with my partner being a complete dick, as usual…"

xXxXx

Hinata suddenly found herself pinned to the wall of the cave, a foot off the ground. Kakuzu stood before her, one hand holding her in the air by her neck, the other clutching a kunai.

"Who the fuck are you?" he growled, lifting the kunai and placing the tip against her stomach.

Hinata could not think of a time in her life when she had ever been more scared.

"Hinata Hyuuga," she gasped, trying to cope with the lack of air.

Kakuzu glared menacingly at her, "Hyuuga? That makes you pretty valuable then," he mused to himself, "I could get quite a ransom for you…"

For a moment or two, he lost himself in thought. Meanwhile, Hinata struggled for breath and tried to hold back the hysterical sobs that were working their way up her throat. It would do no good to start bawling in front of this man.

Without warning, Kakuzu released her and returned the kunai to his bag.

"Let's go," he said abruptly, turning and walking from the cave, leaving Hinata lying supine on the floor, gasping for air and clutching her neck with one hand, the other still grasping the strange necklace.

Slowly, she got onto her knees and stood. After a moment's hesitation, she placed the chain around her neck and continued out of the cave to find Kakuzu staring at the sky.

When he heard her, he shot a glance in her direction and walked into the woods without comment. Hinata jogged to catch up, and then strolled along aimlessly behind him, one hand still massaging her bruised neck.

"How did this happen?" Kakuzu asked suddenly.

Hinata was taken aback.

"S-sorry?" she questioned nervously, afraid of provoking his wrath again.

"How did you become, you know?" Kakuzu inquired, waving his hand in her general direction

"Oh, I don't k-know," Hinata stuttered nervously, "I t-think it's because I, um, wished upon a star to become more, uh, confident and, um, s-self-assured. Be-because I'm not very, um, secure with myself and I'm, um, k-kind of weak and maybe this will, uh, help me become s-stronger—"

"Shut the fuck up," Kakuzu snarled.

Hinata immediately fell into an unsteady silence.

"You want to become more confident? First off, stop stuttering so much, and stop saying 'um' every other word. It's fucking annoying."

Hinata blushed and looked in the ground. Which was just as well, because there was a tree root that she had not noticed right before her feet and she would most certainly have tripped over it, if not for that glance. And tripping over a tree root would, she was sure, have not pleased Kakuzu. She hurriedly stepped over the root and returned her gaze to Kakuzu's back.

My God, is he tall, she thought to herself.

"I-I'm sorry," she said quietly.

Kakuzu groaned.

"I-I mean, I'm sorry, sir," she repeated, with a minuscule addition of force to her tone.

"That's somewhat better," Kakuzu muttered, "But you're really gonna have to work on that, before I kill you."

"I-I thought he—I mean, I— I mean he...is immortal," she half-questioned.

"He is," Kakuzu replied shortly.

"Well then, how are you going to, um, kill me? Unless you have s-some trick that makes him, um, mort—"

"Shut the fuck up," he groaned, "God, I never thought I would miss that fucking idiot's bickering."

"S-sorry," Hinata apologized shamefacedly.

Kakuzu grunted. Hinata stared sadly at the ground; she had a feeling that this was going to be a very long journey.


	5. Chapter 5

**_A/N:_ K, two things. 1) I'm sorry it took forever and a day to post this and 2) I'm sorry it's so short. Those are both due to school having just started up again and me being in full IB (International Baccalaureate), which basically means super hard classes. So I've been busting my ass with physics every night. But I finally finished. I can guarantee that it will be at least a week for each consecutive chapter to come out, except on rare occasions where I have mounds of free time.**

**On an unrelated note, did any of you attend the New York Anime Convention back on the 26th of September? Because I did :D. If you did, maybe you saw me; I was shippuden Neji rocking the Hyuuga seal rather than a forehead protector. It was a great time and my cousin (soundtrack of your life (add periods instead of spaces)) was with me. Lots of fun. Anyway, I'm sure you're bored of this now, so I'll let you be. :D**

* * *

"No, you complete imbecile. For the last time, Hinata is always a little slouched and keep your toes pointed towards each other," Shino said lazily, rolling his eyes at Hidan's efforts to impersonate the girl.

"Shut the fuck up," Hidan growled, letting his back curve and attempting to turn his toes in. This caused him to almost tip over, "How the fuck does she always stand like this?!" he exclaimed, trying again and succeeding, "It's fucking uncomfortable!"

Shino shrugged unconcernedly, "And lift your hands. Good. Now put your pointer fingers together and look embarrassedly at the ground."

Hidan did so.

"I said embarrassed, not constipated," Shino drawled, leaning against a tree.

Hidan flushed, "I don't do embarrassed, you shithead."

"You don't, but Hinata does. And seeing as you have to be Hinata for however long this takes to fix, you might want to work on it."

Hidan glowered and struggled again to rearrange his features into embarrassment.

"Well, that's good enough for now," Shino sighed. Honestly, not only was this man was emotionally unstable, but he was also apparently mentally handicapped, not a good combination. Hinata was really not the most difficult person to imitate.

Hidan grunted and relaxed his position, "This is the most fucking retarded thing I've ever done," he snarled, smoothing creases from the front of his dress.

Shino raised an eyebrow, "Surely not. You do have a reputation for getting yourself into stupid situations."

Hidan shot him a look that could have scared Satan. Shino had to physically restrain himself from shrinking away.

"You know nothing about me," Hidan hissed through gritted teeth, "so don't you_ dare_ talk like you know me."

"Congratulations. You managed to utter a full thought without a single expletive," replied Shino dryly.

Hidan snorted and strode forward, "Let's get the fuck out of here," he muttered, "I'm fucking starving."

"Hey, hey," chided Shino amusedly, "We're about to go into public, so you had better remember to treat me with the proper respect."

Hidan ground his jaw for a moment, "Let's go get something to eat…Shino-kun," he spat finally.

Shino smirked, "Much better."

This whole being a controlling bastard thing was actually kind of fun.

xXxXx

Hinata had never so seriously considered suicide.

After several hours of less than companionable silence, Kakuzu had finally announced that he would be treating her just as he would treat Hidan, and she had better figure out the proper responses or she would be losing a limb.

Hinata had treated this pronouncement with a great amount of stuttering and fear. Kakuzu had glowered and promptly punched her in the face, much too quickly for her to block.

Now she had a bloody nose and watering eyes, but she disguised her sniffles as attempts to mop up the blood. Though, Kakuzu still shot her glares.

Hinata did not think she had ever met a more foul-tempered man in her entire life. She could not help but feel the tiniest spark of sympathy for Hidan. After all, it seemed that he got his immortality abused every time he did something his partner did not like. Despite this, she could not shake that niggling feeling that maybe Hidan deserved it. After all, he was an Akatsuki member.

"We have to make a stop before Konoha," Kakuzu announced suddenly, "There's a bounty I want to collect."

"O-ok," stuttered Hinata.

Kakuzu whirled around and smacked her in the mouth. Hinata cried out in surprise and pain.

"That is not the correct response," he said calmly, wiping a spot of blood of his hand onto his cloak.

"I-I mean…," whimpered Hinata, "why the fuck do we have to do that?"

Kakuzu paused, "Yes, that's a bit better." And he turned around again and continued walking.

Hinata did not move for a moment, merely considering what had just happened. Apparently, throwing out swears seemed to be something Hidan did, so she would be sure to include more of those in her speech.

"Um…so, who…um…the fuck…are we collecting a bounty on?" Hinata inquired, speaking slowly to avoid stuttering.

Kakuzu shot her a narrow eyed gaze, "A man under Orochimaru's control," he said swiftly, "His name is Kimimaru."

Hinata frowned, "He's one of O-Orochimaru's? Won't he be v-very stro- I mean- fucking s-strong?"

"Yes. That's why his bounty is so high. However, as Akatsuki members, we are expected to be stronger."

Hinata nodded, but inside she was wailing desperately, "But I'm not an Akatsuki member! I'm just a kunoichi…and not a very skilled one at that. I can't fight this guy!"

Almost as if he read her mind, Kakuzu suddenly spoke, "Of course, I won't let you take part in the battle. I don't need a weakling like you getting in my way."

Hinata felt relief course over her, but she couldn't help but feel a niggling of irritation. Who was this man to say she was weak? Sure, in her own body she wasn't much help to anyone, but in Hidan's body…in Hidan's body, she was much stronger. Hadn't she proved that early when she had punched him away?

"I…I'd like to…fucking…help," she murmured, staring at the back of Kakuzu's feet.

"What was that?"

"I…I would like to…assist...you in…fucking…capturing Kimimaru…,sir," she replied, louder.

He stopped and slowly turned to look at her, "Out of the question. You'll get yourself killed. And Hidan would never refer to me as sir."

"S-sorry…,boss man. Um…but…if I'm s-supposed to act like Hidan-san, then shouldn't I fucking…fight, um, with you?" Hinata asked cautiously.

"It's extremely unlikely that I would have required Hidan's help in this situation, so it would not be strange for him to sit out."

"B-but, sir, I mean, Kakuzu-san…wouldn't it be…fucking…better for…me to, um, get some…e-experience?" Hidan stuttered, "And, H-Hidan-san is, um, fucking i-immortal, so I wouldn't m-make you lose your p-partner or…any…shit like th-that."

Kakuzu frowned, "Hidan is…a fool. He is ill-tempered, slow, and self-centered. Hidan would, most certainly despite his immortality, be severely damaged in such a battle and I wouldn't have the time or the patience to fix that while collecting a bounty. So, if Hidan himself couldn't help me, why would I ever let a brat like you get in my way?"

Hinata looked down, "I-I guess you're fucking r-right, Kakuzu-san," she muttered. In fact, she was not quite sure why she was being so insistent that he let her fight, anyway. After all, just because she had Hidan's strength, did not mean she possessed his ability.

She looked up to see Kakuzu several meters way, marching with a determined pace. She yelped slightly and raced after him.

She really did feel bad for Hidan.

xXxXx

Hidan shot a glare at the boy across the restaurant who was happily ogling his rather ample chest. The boy blushed and turned away and Hidan returned his glare to Shino, who was rather happily eating a piece of pork.

"You really need to stop terrorizing the youth," he remarked casually, helping himself to another chunk of meat.

Hidan frowned, "I'm not terrorizing the fucking _youth_," he growled, "I'm putting that snotty-nosed asshole back in his place."

"Language," replied Shino idly. He ate a piece of pork and then put down his chopsticks, folded his hands, and looked up at Hidan, "and you really need to stop glaring so much. I mean, for one thing, you're really going to get premature wrinkles, besides the fact that you're going to be found out."

Hidan's glare deepened, "You only said I fucking had to respect _you_, Shino-_kun_," he snarled.

"Ah, but you're wrong. I did, in fact, inform you that Hinata treats everyone with the utmost respect. So, you're just going to have to learn a little humility. Isn't that what you wanted anyway?"

Hidan stared at him, shocked, "No way. You…you mean that this happened because…of that fucking wish?"

Shino paused, a sliver of pig halfway to his mouth and shot a quick glance at the man/girl in front of him, "You're kidding, right? You didn't seriously not get that."

Hidan blushed, "Shut up. I wasn't expecting something this. Besides, it's not like I actually _meant_ that wish. It was just a fucking...moment of weakness or some shit like that."

Shino sat for a moment, the pork still suspended in the air, marveling at the stupidity of this man, "Hidan…you are the dumbest person I have ever met in my entire life. And that includes Naruto and Kiba. And whether you admit it or not, you meant that wish, and this is the answer."

"Well, this answer fucking _sucks_!" Hidan exploded, jumping to his feet, "I want out of here!"

Every single eye in the restaurant gazed, shocked, at Hidan. There was complete silence.

Shino sighed, "Sit down, you fool," he said quietly.

Hidan glared steadily at an old man eating a bowl of ramen, before slowly returning to his seat and turning his gaze to Shino.

"I want out of here," he hissed, narrowing his eyes and folding his arms angrily.

Shino shook his head, "Stop acting like a pouting child and get a hold of yourself. That outburst was completely out of character. You're just lucky that no one who knows Hinata is in this restaurant. Now, eat your pork and try for some humility. Because I don't want you here anymore than you want to be here."

For a moment Hidan did nothing, but then, slowly, he unfolded his arms and partially relaxed his face, which left him looking like some creature from a bad horror movie.

Shino observed this with mild discomfort. He could not help but feel somewhat bad for the man. His lacking intelligence wasn't really his fault, and he really was struggling with this predicament. Besides, Shino could not help, but worry about Hinata being in Hidan's body. The poor thing, without anyone to protect her, having to mingle with the Akatsuki.

"Whatcha thinkin' about?" asked Hidan suspiciously, his glare returning fully.

"I wonder if she's alright. If she misses me at all," Shino replied wistfully, without thinking.

Hidan stared at him, surprised.

Noticing this, Shino realized what he had just said and gasped, "I mean. I-I am just a little concerned if she'll be able to cope with being in your body. I mean, she's not that strong of a ninja and she is all of a sudden with the most violent and dangerous people on this planet and…what are you smiling at?"

And indeed, Hidan was grinning at him, "So…you got the hots for this girl?"

Shino blushed and buried his nose in his collar, "Of course not. She's just my friend."

"Riiight," Hidan's grin widened, "So that's why you're so eager to help me…to get in her pants. But, hey, I can see why. Check out the chest on this thing," He gestured to the rather perky breasts perched on his torso.

"Don't talk about her like that," Shino snarled, "She's not some item that you stare at in a store. She's a lady and she deserves to be treated as such, whether she's in her body or not."

For a long moment there was nothing but the sound of quiet laughter, chatting, and clinking glasses from the other patrons of the restaurant, while Hidan stared at Shino and Shino glared at Hidan.

"Right…,sorry," Hidan said finally, "Didn't realize she was so completely not enthralled with you," He grinned, "Hell, she probably doesn't even fucking notice your existence. Love her from afar, eh?" He snickered.

"Shut up! I don't love her from afar. I'm just taking my time, letting her notice me at her own pace…wait, did you just use the word enthralled?"

"Yeah, see, I'm actually a lot smarter than everyone thinks. I graduated at the top of the academy."

Shino was too shocked by this announcement to say anything, so he simply grabbed his water and chugged.

"Well, this has been fun, but I need to go get my beauty sleep," Hidan smirked, standing quietly and turning to leave, "You'll take care of the check, right? Good man." And with that, he swept out of the establishment, leaving Shino wondering how exactly he had been denied the last word.


	6. Chapter 6

Some things were better left unsaid. This Hinata learned the hard way.

As she and Kakuzu had been walking along, they had eventually reached a dango shop. Hinata was quite starved by this time and had worked up the courage to request that they stop and have some of the treat. Kakuzu promptly replied 'no' and that she was being outrageous with her desire to spend. Hinata, attempting to channel Hidan, had then muttered that he was a 'fuckhead and a miser' albeit with a large amount of stuttering and blushing.

Kakuzu, it seemed, did not take well to being insulted. A surprised gasp and a hard fist later, Hinata found herself about twenty feet away, lying on her back, with extremely sore abs, ass, and pride. Now, thirty minutes later, Hinata was still starving and still sore. She was quite unhappy with her current situation and had settled herself in for a good sulk.

Nighttime couldn't come fast enough.

xXxXx

Hidan was pleasantly surprised to discover that this Hinata girl was ridiculously rich. The people he had noticed before were, as it turned out, servants. Servants that he took great pleasure in ordering about, knowing full well that Shino would kill him for doing something so out of character.

This led him to decide that she was the most useless girl on the planet. Apparently, this girl, who had tits the size of good sized melons and bucket loads of cash, was a complete and total pussy. She didn't seem to do anything. Not go out, not defend herself, not party, and certainly not get laid. It was the dumbest situation he had ever found himself in and that, as Shino had pointed out, was impressive. Not that he would admit it.

However, Hidan had had a brilliant idea. Now that Shino mentioned it, it was obvious that he been placed in this body due to the wish he had made. So, the simplest solution would be to simply wish himself back. It sounded easy enough. So now, all he had to do was wait.

xXxXx

When they finally stopped for the night, Hinata could barely stand. She had never been this tired before. Now she understood why she wasn't a jonin. They were tough, something she had never been able to be.

Maybe she would work on that when she got back into her body, but, for now, she would have to try her hardest, because Kakuzu sure wasn't going to let up.

"I'll take first watch," he said as she fell to the ground. She nodded weakly and immediately fell asleep.

xXxXx

All too soon, it seemed, she was being shaken awake.

"Wake up," came Kakuzu's gruff voice from her right. She groaned and attempted to move away from him.

"Five more minutes," she mumbled, pulling her cloak tighter around herself. She was surprised when, a second later, he let go of her. For a moment, she thought he was actually going to let her sleep. That is, until, with a tremendous thud, he kicked her in the side.

"Get. Up," he snarled. Hinata whimpered and pulled herself upright. He watched with his arms crossed to make sure she actually did as she was told, "Wake me up in an hour."

Hinata nodded weakly and shivered. She wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to keep warm and threw her head back to stare at the sky. There was a single star floating high above.

After a nervous look at Kakuzu, she turned her gaze back to the star and prepared to whisper.

xXxXx

Hidan stood on the balcony of Hinata's room feeling somewhat like a princess. This irritated him, as he was a man. A real man. And real men don't ever feel like princesses.

As he contemplated the rage that was building up inside of him, he stared up at the sky. For quite some time, he searched in vain, but, then…out of nowhere…a star. A single star. He smiled thinly. Excellent.

xXxXx

Together, though they did not know it, they murmured, "Star light, star bright. The first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight. I wish to be back in my own body." Of course, Hidan's version was quite a bit longer with all the added swears.

Both of them waited expectantly for a moment, hoping to fall unconscious as they had last time, or to have something happen at all. But nothing did. For a long while, they continued staring up.

At long last, Hidan got bored of waiting and proceeded to close his eyes and fall over backwards, in an attempt to knock himself out and thus jolt himself back into his own, self-described 'luscious' body.

Unfortunately for him, Neji had walked up behind him, and he was caught by the long-haired freak.

"Hinata, are you alright?" the younger man asked, seeming somewhat concerned.

"Uh, yeah," Hidan replied in an unnaturally high falsetto, forgetting that his voice didn't need to be edited. "Just tripped."

Neji stared down at him for a second, looking doubtful. But, after a second or two, he decided to accept the lie and righted Hidan.

"Be careful," he said dubiously, "Anyway, your father would like to see you."

"Oh joy," Hidan muttered. He had yet to meet the man, but, judging by the servant gossip and general fear, he was a total prick.

Much to his surprise, he could have sworn that, just for a second, Neji smiled. Maybe the kid wasn't so bad, after all. Just…misunderstood or something.

"Come on," Neji turned and began to walk away.

Hidan threw a glance back at the star and shrugged, "Iight."

xXxXx

Hinata sat on the forest floor sobbing her eyes out.

A hand clamped down firmly on her mouth and another held a kunai to her throat.

She gasped and attempted to twist away, but to no avail; the hands held on tight.

"Shut up," Kakuzu's voice hissed in her ear, "Are you trying to get us killed?"

Hinata stopped struggling at the revelation that it was her partner and her sobbing slowly lessened.

"That's better," Kakuzu muttered, releasing her, "Now, do you mind telling me why you were trying to alert the entire world to our presence?"

"S-sorry," Hinata hiccupped, "I just…w-want to go home. I, uh, w-wished upon a s-star, so that I could get put b-back in my own b-body," She sniffled.

Kakuzu stared at her, an odd look on his face. It almost looked like…sympathy.

"Look, I know this can't be fun for you," he said slowly, "but, you have to ignore that. Life isn't always fun, you know. Sometimes, it kicks you in the balls. But you can't just fall down and start crying. You gotta make sure you're wearing a cup and steel-tipped boots and kick life back in its own balls. You know?" He looked extremely awkward and rather surprised with himself for having made that speech.

But his surprised was nothing compared to Hinata's, whose mouth had dropped open.

"I…yeah, I g-guess," she said after a bit, "What s-should I do? To..k-kick life in the b-balls?"

"You gotta be the best damn Hidan the world has ever seen. You need to make Hidan think you're the real Hidan. Got it?" he replied gruffly, looking her dead in the eye.

She stared at him for a second and, slowly, she felt herself smile. "Yeah. I got it."

And then, to her even _greater_ surprise, he smiled back.

"Good."

A/N: Let's just pretend that didn't take ages for me to post. K, cool.


	7. Chapter 7

Hidan followed Neji down the stairs, through some hallways, and into a completely empty room. Which was odd, seeing as Neji told him to come see Hinata's father. However, that was quickly resolved when a middle-aged man, who could only be the head of the household, and a little girl walked in.

"Thank you, Neji," the man said quietly.

Neji nodded and backed out of the room. Hidan, strangely enough, wished he wouldn't leave. He was the only person he knew in the whole goddamned house. With a slight frown, he shook off the feeling and examined the two in front of him.

The man resembled an older version of Neji. He was tall, pale, with long black hair, and a bit of a receding hairline. His eyes had the same iridescent quality that all Hyuuga's possessed and the wrinkles on his face indicated that he did not smile much.

The girl was quite young, slight, and mildly pretty. He reckoned that she was Hinata's sister, seeing as they looked fairly similar, though Hinata had markedly bigger tits.

"Well, Hinata," the man said, "Are you ready?"

Hidan wasn't sure what exactly he was supposed to be ready for, but he nodded anyway. The man gestured for him to step forward and he did so uncertainly. What was going on?

"Hanabi," the man said quickly, and, all of a sudden, the girl was flying towards him.

She threw out her hands in swift punches and kicked out towards his head. Eyes wide, Hidan leapt back, avoiding her flailing limbs. He shot a glance at the man, and then returned his gaze to the girl who was continuing to attack.

Blow after blow he avoided. Despite his callous attitude and general dick-headedness, Hidan was still above hitting a little girl, but she kept coming. Within a few seconds, Hidan found himself cornered. He gritted his teeth and began to smack away her arms, trying to avoid actually hurting her.

This all changed, however, when the girl managed to kick him in the thigh. A little to high up for comfort. Granted, he didn't have to worry about that in this body, but it was the principle of the thing.

"Oh, hell no," he growled, pushing off from the wall, "You're going down, little girl."

In a few swift moves, he brought the girl to her knees. Not satisfied, he shot her a glower and finished her off with a swift kick to the mouth.

For a long minute, there was complete silence. Hidan wasn't even panting. That had been far too easy for his taste.

The girl lie face-down, unconscious. Her nose was clearly broken and she had lost a tooth, which was lying at Hidan's feet. There was one thing for sure; she was going to have a terrible headache when she woke up.

"Hinata…," the man said slowly. He looked up at Hidan and stared.

Far too late, it occurred to Hidan that Hinata was a pussy and beating the shit out of her sister was probably extremely out of character.

"Ah…sorry," he muttered, looking down.

He stole a quick glance at the man, to judge how screwed he was, and was surprised to find him smiling.

That was rather odd. Normally, a parent doesn't smile when one of their children knocks out the other. But he was, as clear as day. Positively grinning. He looked absolutely delighted. Odd.

"You did it," he said finally, his expression just as joyous, "You finally beat her. You're getting better."

Hidan hesitated and then smiled tentatively. Apparently, having his children fight was a common occurrence and Hinata always lost. For some reason, Hidan wasn't surprised.

"Yeah. I've been practicing a lot," he replied, grinning lamely at his surrogate father. "Shino helped me," he added as an afterthought. Might as well help the kid get in this guy's good books if he was going to get with Hinata later on.

"Thank him profusely. He's done a wonderful job," he returned, his grin only getting bigger. His eyes drifted to Hanabi and the grin faded, his eyes turning cold. "Get someone to take care of her. I'm going to bed." He turned and strode away.

Hidan stared after him for a second.

"What a douche," he muttered to himself, looking down at the unconscious girl, "Right. Let's get you fixed up."

He picked her up and slung her over his shoulder, staggering for a second under her weight.

"Agh, you're sister is so fucking weak," he informed the girl.

She said nothing. He rolled his eyes and stumbled out of the training room and back into the main house.

"Oy! Hanabi needs some help!" he called, hoping someone with medical training would magically appear.

Instead, Neji came around the corner.

He saw Hidan standing there with Hanabi over his shoulder and blinked.

"Congratulations."

"Jesus. Does no one care that she's half dead?" Hidan asked, nodding to Hanabi and wondering if he'd misjudged Hinata. Since, apparently, it was shocking that she would actually manage to beat this little girl, she must be a lot lamer than he had originally thought.

Neji shrugged.

"She's a bitch."

Hidan stared at him. That was unusual.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

There was a long pause. And then both of them grinned.

"C'mon. Let's find her nanny," Neji said, taking Hanabi onto his own shoulder.

"Ok," Hidan said amiably, following the tall boy.

He had a feeling that they were going to get along.

xXxXx

Hinata and Kakuzu were strolling at a slightly slower speed than they had been the day before. Which was good, because Hinata was fairly certain that she would not have been able to survive even another minute of that breakneck pace.

They were heading towards a hidden cavern that Kimimaru was rumored to be hiding out in. Kakuzu reckoned that they would get there by evening and then it was only a matter of killing him and carting his body off to the nearest bounty collecting station.

Hinata was still trying to come to terms with the fact that they were going to be killing this man for money. Though she knew she should be used to it, since that was sort of her job. But she had never actually killed anyone herself. Besides, as Kakuzu routinely pointed out, she was very weak. This led to the fear the Kimimaru was going to mutilate her. Of course, she couldn't die, but it would still hurt terribly.

By early evening, they had arrived at their destination. Very quietly, they crept through the woods and soon found themselves on a small cliff, overlooking the cavern that Kimimaru was said to be hiding in. Hinata felt her stomach tighten, just from thinking about the battle that lie ahead.

"Ok. We'll rest for a couple hours and get him in the early morning when he's more likely to be asleep," Kakuzu whispered.

Hinata nodded and swallowed hard. Kakuzu glanced at her for a second before retreating back down the hill. Hinata took the hint and followed.

"I'll take first watch," he muttered, speaking quietly to avoid detection, "I'll wake you up in an hour."

Hinata nodded nervously and sat down under a tree. She was sure that she wouldn't be getting any rest, despite being incredibly tired. She was simply too nervous.

At long last, she was finally starting to doze off, though she couldn't have had more than twenty minutes before she was going to be woken. But, that didn't matter because at that moment, something completely unprecedented happened.

"Kakuzu, Hidan," murmured the deepest and most sensual voice Hinata had ever heard. Strangely enough, it appeared to be coming from absolutely nowhere.

Hinata jumped and yelped quietly, severely surprised. Kakuzu shot her a glare and aimed a halfhearted kick in her direction. She flinched and cowered against the tree. He responded by rolling his eyes.

"We're here, Leader-sama," he said quietly.

Hinata looked around wildly, trying to understand where the voice had come from. And, Leader-sama? It couldn't be the leader of the Akatsuki, could it? She couldn't handle that.

"Good. Kisame has captured the Four Tails. You two need to come to the Fire Country hideout, so we can seal him. I want everyone there in person for this one, he's been struggling," replied the voice, sounding just as smooth and mind-numbingly orgasmic as before.

Hinata glanced around again and then realized that the voice was coming from inside her own head. What on earth was going on?

"Unfortunately, we are not in a position that allows us to travel to the hideout right now. We are in the middle of capturing Kimimaru," Kakuzu stated tonelessly.

For a second, the voice was silent. Then, it spoke up again, sounding mildly irritated.

"I can give you two days, at the most. But make it quick."

"Of course, Leader-sama. We'll be ready by then," Kakuzu replied, nodding his head slightly.

The voice said nothing, but Hinata felt a slight pressure in her head that she hadn't noticed before fade away.

"Is he g-gone?" she whispered.

"Yes," Kakuzu said, not looking at her.

"Um…who was that?" Hinata asked after a pause.

"Pein," he said shortly.

Hinata swallowed, "The… Akatsuki l-leader?"

Kakuzu rolled his eyes and nodded. Hinata felt her chest tighten.

"The problem is, when we seal the Four Tails, which you can't even do without training, you'll be locked in a room with the entire Akatsuki, disregarding Hidan, for three days. And they aren't dumb. They'll figure out that you aren't Hidan. And that will mean trouble," he said, finally looking at her.

Hinata swallowed hard, "What are we going to do?" she whispered.

He hesitated, "Well, for starters, we aren't going to capture Kimimaru. Which is extremely irritating and I expect you to pay me back for the loss," he said, glowering at her and jabbing a finger in her direction, "Anyway, we're going to have to spend the next two days teaching you everything there is to know about Hidan. And you'd better learn the lessons well. You're life depends on it."

Hinata nodded vaguely. Kakuzu looked surprised.

"You're not going to faint?"

Hinata considered this for a moment, then shook her head. Kakuzu raised an eyebrow. Hinata sighed and promptly keeled over. Kakuzu swore and kicked her.

"Fucking hell."

A/N: …I like Pein. XD


	8. Chapter 8

"As a Hyuuga, I assume you have some ability in molding chakra," Kakuzu said, observing Hinata, who stood awkwardly in front of him.

She nodded hesitantly, not wanting to come off as a braggart.

"Have you ever sealed anything?" he asked her, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes.

She shrugged. In fact, she had, but it hadn't really been a big deal.

"Well, that's something," he muttered, looking at the ground and considering the options, "Ok. As long as you know the jist of sealing, there's not much I can show you. We'll just have to pray you can hold out long enough to seal the four tails. However, it shouldn't be too big of a deal if your chakra fails. We can seal it without you. We can just say you used up a lot of chakra recently. Pein'll be annoyed, but Hidan's done it before."

Hinata nodded again, her head swimming. This was way too much responsibility. She was fairly certain that the moment she walked into the room with the nine of them, she would hyperventilate and collapse. And then they would know for sure that she wasn't Hidan, which would probably lead to some very painful questioning. And Hinata did not have a very high pain tolerance. She could honestly say she had never been more nervous in her entire life.

"Well, I guess now we'll cover all the people you're going to encounter and how you are to react to each of them."

Hinata swallowed hard and nodded for what felt like the millionth time.

"But before that, stop standing like that," Kakuzu barked, glaring at her slouched posture and her fingers that she kept pressing together, "Hidan may be an idiot, but he has excellent posture."

Hinata jumped and straightened her back. She brought her hands down to her side, and, not knowing what to do with them, she awkwardly shoved them in her pockets. Kakuzu nodded slightly.

"That's somewhat better… Alright, do you know who all the Akatsuki members are?"

Hinata shook her head. She only knew of Kakuzu, Hidan, and Itachi. Well, and Pein, but that was only because of the evening before.

Kakuzu sighed. Why was he even bothering to help her again? Oh, yeah. Hyuuga. Lots of cash. The things he would do for money…

"OK, I guess we'll go by ring order. When we're sealing, we stand on these giant stone hands on the finger that indicates our ring position. You, for example, will stand on the left forefinger."

Well, that seemed easy enough. Hinata nodded.

"Are you ever going to speak again?" Kakuzu growled, "Whatever. Ok, so, the right hand. On the right pinky is Zetsu. He's an interesting looking guy. Half of him is black and the other half is white and he has these giant plant things sticking out of his shoulders."

Hinata stared at him. She was fairly certain that Kakuzu had just said this man had plant things stuck to his body, which was ridiculous. She waited expectantly to see if he was kidding, but he made no sign that he was and continued right on.

"He doesn't talk much except to say if an enemy is approaching. In that case, you just have to request to fight them. Say you haven't had a good battle in ages. Don't worry, Pein'll never let you go," he said quickly, noticing her panicked expression, "On the right ring finger is Uchiha Itachi. You may know who he is, since he's actually from Konoha."

Hinata nodded vigorously. Yes, Itachi she had heard of. Though she still didn't know much about him, except that he was Sasuke's older brother and that he had killed the entire Uchiha clan, save for himself and Sasuke.

"Right, well, he has long black hair that he always keeps in a ponytail. His eyes are black, except when he has the sharingan activated, of course. He's usually considered to be pretty attractive," Kakuzu listed, seeming slightly awkward, "You usually bother him about killing his clan and about his little brother Anyway, on the right middle finger is Konan. She's the only woman, so you should recognize her easy enough. Just be as nasty as possible to her."

Hinata was surprised. She hadn't been aware that there were any women in the Akatsuki.

"W-why have I n-never heard of there b-being a woman in the, uh, Ak-Akatsuki…asshole?" she asked hesitantly, breaking him off from his rant.

He didn't even take a moment to consider, "Probably because she's completely worthless. We only keep her around because she and Pein used to be pals and Pein says we have to be 'diverse'. He obviously wants to kick her out, though, so I don't know why he lets her stay. Anyway, on the right index finger is Deidara. He has long blonde hair. Hidan's main insult towards him is to tell him that he looks like a woman. He always refers to him as Deidara-chan. On the right thumb is Pein himself, who is the Akatsuki leader. He has red hair and multiple facial piercings. He kind of stands out in a crowd, if you know what I mean. Just be as disrespectful as possible to him."

Hinata blinked, starting to get a headache. This was a lot of information to know. But they had time, she could learn it all if she set her mind to it. Hopefully.

"On the left thumb is Tobi. He's always wearing an orange mask. On the left middle finger is me, obviously," he said, holding up his left hand.

Hinata was a little embarrassed to discover that she hadn't even noticed that. So much for her ninja skills of detection.

"On the left ring finger is Hoshigaki Kisame," Kakuzu continued on, lowering his hand, "He's blue, so you should recognize him fairly easily. He has the most chakra in the Akatsuki."

"He's what?" Hinata spluttered, not sure that she had heard him right. "Did you just say he's blue?"

"Yeah. Are you really that surprised? I mean, earlier I was telling you about a man who's half plant."

Hinata considered this for a second, "I guess not. It's just sort of unexpected." She looked back at Kakuzu and was surprised to see him quietly smiling. "…What?"

"You didn't stutter once," he said, still smiling, "You're getting better."

Hinata was surprised. She hadn't even noticed. Slowly, she smiled back at him.

"Anyway," he continued, his smile fading just as quickly as it had appeared, "you don't say much to him either. On the left pinky is Sasori. Creepy guy. He's a puppet and he may or may not be in a puppet."

Hinata was confused, "I'm s-sorry? Could you say that again?"

Kakuzu rolled his eyes.

"He turned his own body into a puppet, God knows how. However, he does spend the majority of his time hiding inside of another puppet. His normal body is kind of little and he has red hair. The puppet he sometimes hangs out in is…basically a hunchback with black cornrows."

Hinata made a face.

"Yeah, it's not pretty. Either way, you don't interact with him much. And that's everyone."

"I don't know if I'm going to remember everything," she said after a long moment of contemplating.

"We have all of today and all of tomorrow to make sure you learn it all. Though we do have to spend tomorrow travelling to get there. For now, we should focus more on making sure you can maneuver like Hidan. And get you to speak more like him."

Hinata paused for a second, then muttered hesitantly, "…What the f-fuck, man. I'm f-fucking…perfection."

For a second, Kakuzu stared at her and she held her breath. Then, without warning, he burst out laughing.

"Yeah, like that. Just don't stutter," he chuckled.

Hinata grinned at him. She could do this.

xXxXx

Shino was late. Hidan was extremely irritated. Here he was in the foyer of the Hyuuga house _waiting_ for some punkass little boy to come and get him. I mean, he already deserved instant service as a man, but that only increased now that he was a woman. A woman with _boobs_. A woman with huge, fucking, bouncing _titties._

He pouted and crossed his arms over his ample chest. If Shino didn't get here soon, he was going back to bed. Making him get up so early just so he would have to wait around was simply ridiculous.

Loud laughter came from some room to his right and he looked over with interest, wondering what was going on.

Not two seconds later, Neji came bursting into the foyer, looking extremely angry.

"Get out of this house, you second-class piece of shit!" screamed a voice from behind him. The laughter started up again.

Hidan frowned. This didn't seem like the proper way to treat a Hyuuga. Weren't they all supposed to be super, special awesome or something?

Neji looked up and, when he saw Hidan standing there, his face contorted with rage, "What the fuck are you looking at?" he snarled.

Hidan stared at him, a strange feeling welling up in his gut. It took him a moment to figure out what it was. Pity.

"…What happened?" he asked, ignoring Neji's obvious desire to be left alone.

"Ask them," Neji glowered, jerking his thumb behind him, "Dammit!" he yelled suddenly, whipping a hand around and knocking a vase off a table. He looked satisfied when it shattered on the ground.

"What the fuck, man?" Hidan asked, "This is not your shit to break."

He had liked that vase. Granted, it wasn't his either, but it was pretty with its strangely purple color and blue and gold butterflies.

Neji looked up at him, "Who the hell are you?"

Hidan rolled his eyes, "Hinata, genius."

And with that, before he knew what he was doing, he strolled into the room where Neji had come from and glanced about. It was a kitchen and there was a large number of staff bustling about.

"Oy!" he called, and they all turned to him, "Right. This kid out here, he's my cousin. And a Hyuuga. So, you'd better fucking treat him with some goddamn respect. Ya hear? I won't tolerate no shit from any of you bitches. We clear?"

The shocked staff hurriedly nodded and murmured things such as, "Of course, Hinata-san," And, "Forgive us, Hyuuga-sama."

Hidan nodded grimly, satisfied with himself. He was absolutely positive that he had just done a good deed and Shino was going to be glowingly pleased with him. That is, until he remembered that he was supposed to be staying in character, which is something he had definitely not done.

"Aw, fuck," he whined, turning back towards the foyer.

"Look, I've let you be for quite a while now because, frankly, I like you more than her, but, seriously, who are you?" Neji asked, his eyes narrowed.

"You wouldn't believe me," Hidan muttered, sitting down on a nearby bench.

"Try me," Neji replied dryly, leaning up against a wall and crossing his arms.

Hidan glanced over at him, "My name's Hidan. I'm from the Akatsuki. I made a wish a couple of nights ago and it ended up putting me in the body of your friggin' cousin. And now, I don't know how to get back into my own body. And I really want to get back into my own body," he trailed off, embarrassed to find that he was tearing up.

Neji was quiet for a moment, "Hidan," he said quietly, "Alright. Well, what did you wish for?"

"You're taking this well," Hidan said, surprised, "Shouldn't you be freaking out? I am in the Akatsuki and I did get rid of your cousin."

"Yeah, thanks for that," Neji replied, sitting down on the bench next to him, "Seriously, you're way more entertaining than she ever was. But, moving on, what did you wish for?"

"Well, you see, my partner was ragging on me for being too much of a douche. Shut the fuck up," he said hurriedly, when Neji raised any eyebrow, "And I, uh, got a little sentimental and wished that…you know, I was…less…like…aggressive and…nicer or some shit."

Neji stared at him, "Less aggressive and kinder? Well, it looks to me like your getting your wish."

"I am?"

"You may have not noticed, but you did just yell at the staff because they were cruel to me," he commented, sounding amused, "And yesterday, you were determined to find aid for Hanabi."

"Yeah, but I was the one who fucked up her face like that," Hidan interrupted, "How is it, anyway?"

"And you just asked about her well-being. Look, Hidan, you may be rough around the edges, but you're certainly achieving what you wanted to achieve. If you set your mind to it, I reckon you can do exactly what you wanted to do. And once you accomplish it, I'm positive you'll end back in your own body."

"Really?" Hidan asked, feeling hopeful.

"Yeah. You just have to work a little harder."

Hidan simply sat there and pondered for a minute.

"Thanks, man," he said finally, "You're not as much of a prick as I thought."

Neji chuckled, "Thanks, I guess. I suppose we should work together on detracting from our douche-ness."

Hidan grinned, "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

They clasped hands for a moment and grinned at each other.

"'Cause, seriously, it's getting weird hearing my cousin swearing."

Hidan shrugged.

xXx

"Right middle."

"Konan."

"Correct. Left thumb."

"Pein."

Hinata grunted as Kakuzu's fist flew into her stomach and knocked the air from her.

"Tobi, Tobi!" she gasped, her hands on her knees.

"Correct. That's enough for now. We'll go over them again in a few hours. Right now, you need to continue working on your dexterity."

Hinata groaned loudly, hoping to indicate her inability to move. However, Kakuzu either did not care or did not understand the meaning of her groan as he simply said, "Avoid me" and charged her.

She swore inwardly and leapt backwards, praying that she wouldn't trip. According to Kakuzu, Hidan was extremely nimble and performed amazing gymnastic maneuvers that Hinata could only dream of doing with ease. Only now, she wasn't allowed to simply dream of them, she was being forced to perform them. It was easier than she had thought it would be, since this body was already used to moving in such a way, but it was still quite difficult.

Flip after flip she performed flawlessly, dodging Kakuzu's, admittedly slowed, movements. Slowly, she started smiling, proud of her success, despite the sweat pouring from her and he intense ache in her muscles. That is, until one flip brought her down on a patch of leaves that suddenly gave way and caused her to be lying on the floor of a pit, staring up, wondering what the hell had just happened.

"You ok?" Kakuzu asked, slight concern showing on his face as he peered over the edge of the hole, "Looks like you landed on a hunting trap."

Hinata nodded, "Yeah…I'm f-…fine," she said, slowly sitting up.

Kakuzu jumped down beside her, "Take it easy," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder, "You've been working hard. Take a break."

Hinata nodded again, extremely grateful, "Thank you," she murmured, scooting painfully over to the edge of the pit and leaning against the earthy wall. "Can I ask you something?" she asked after a while, marveling at her ability to not stutter. Being socked in the gut every time she misspoke was certainly changing that habit.

"Sure," Kakuzu replied, leaning against the wall next to her, looking remarkably more relaxed than she had yet to see him.

"Why are you h-helping me?" she questioned, wincing as he lazily smacked her arm. That was the only response he gave her for several minutes.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Hinata said hurriedly, when he started to open his mouth.

He shook his head.

"I…," he started, "…I used…I'm an old man," he said finally.

Hinata made no reply, since agreeing would be rude and she was unsure why this mattered.

"A long time ago…I was married. And…I…I had a daughter."

Hinata's eyes widened, "What happened to her?" she asked quietly.

"She was killed by some Konoha ninjas when she was eight," he said in a tone so casual that he could have been discussing the weather.

"I'm sorry," Hinata murmured, not knowing what else to say.

"Don't be. You didn't do it. It's just…I want to help you because…you remind me of her. Spending time with you feels like I'm with her again," he trailed off, tilting his head back to stare at the sky.

For a long moment, Hinata didn't know what to say. She was touched. A little sorry for the man's daughter, since she apparently experienced some very tough love, but touched all the same. When she finally came to understand that there was nothing to say, she gently took his hand. He did nothing and the two of them sat quietly together for a long time.

xXx

Shino was astounded. He had ended up running late to get to Hinata's and he was sure Hidan was going to be pouting, but when he ran up he had found Hidan sitting with Neji, of all people, and the two of them laughing like crazy people.

"And then…and then, she was like, 'Mister! You forgot your toothbrush!' and she was waving it around!" Hidan was gasping between fits of laughter.

The two of them started howling with amusement, Neji looking like he might just burst a lung and Hidan threatening to fall off the bench they were sitting on.

"Did I miss something?" Shino asked dryly, quirking an eyebrow at the two of them.

The sight of him sent Neji, whose laughter had been starting to recede, on another fit of giggles.

"Naw, man," Hidan hiccupped, grinning like a lunatic, "I was just telling the Pokster here about this one girl I banged. She was this totally crazy-"

"Are you insane?" Shino hissed, cutting him off.

"Naw. Dude, it's cool. The Pokster knows and he's iight with me being who I am."

Neji nodded to show he was, but was still chuckling too hard to say anything.

Shino stared at him.

"Why did you tell Neji?"

"He already knew I wasn't Hinata," Hidan grinned, "So, he asked me who I really was. Anyway, you ready to go train? Pokster's coming with us."

"I…guess," Shino said after a pause. He was extremely confused. Hidan and Neji certainly did not seem like candidates for becoming friends, but here they were collapsing on each other, laughing about some childish escapade. How very strange. "Hurry it up, though. We don't have much time."

"Thanks to you," Neji said, finally regaining his ability to speak.

"Yeah, whatever," Shino growled, "Just hurry up."

Hidan and Neji stood and the three of them headed out to the training area.

"Aw, fuck, man. My abs are killing me," Hidan complained, clutching his stomach.

"You mean, Hinata's," Neji replied, grinning.

"Ha, yeah."

"So…what was with the toothbrush?" Shino asked, feeling left out.

Hidan grinned at Neji, who smirked back.

"Ok, so, a while ago, I met this nymphomaniac…"

XxX

A/N: No, this is not the end, it's just insanely long. Three thousand two hundred and twelve words to be exact. So, this was easily the longest chapter, so far. I highly doubt I'll write a longer one, haha. Anyway, I do know that Orochimaru is the actual person with the left pinky, but I couldn't exactly put Sasori and Tobi on the same finger, so I hope you'll forgive me for that. Other than that, I know it was random and stuff, but I do hope you enjoyed it. I think, since I just wrote this huge thing, I'm gonna focus on new stories for a while (Bright and Sonny – to be posted soon and I Didn't Want To Die So Soon – pure crack) and get back to this one a bit later. So, yeah. Reviews are appreciated. Love you all. (3,353 now, haha)


	9. Chapter 9

Hidan let his back curve and nodded politely at Shino as he walked past.

"Good afternoon, Shino-kun," he murmured, smiling ever-so-slightly and pushing the tips of his fingers together.

"Excellent," Shino said, grinning, "That was just like her."

Neji nodded from behind him, before turning back to a tree and poking the sap out of it. Hidan was perfectly aware that the poking was the fighting style of the Hyuuga and that it was really quite dangerous, but it still looked funny, watching him jab the tree with such a serious expression.

"You're not gonna break a finger, are you?" he drawled, raising an eyebrow as the Hyuuga counted out his thirty-second poke.

Neji simply grunted and continued his work.

"That, however, was not like Hinata. Let's try to focus here, Hidan. You've got a lot at stake," said Shino with an exasperated sigh.

"Do I, though? I mean, I _am_ fucking _Hidan_. The most gorgeous Akatsuki member to ever fucking _live_," he smirked, crossing his arms across his chest, or, attempting to, anyway. The addition of the perky breasts on his torso was making arm crossing difficult.

"Yeah, yeah. Your real body is stunning, we know," Shino said, rolling his eyes behind his stunner shades, "But, which I find odd that I have to remind you, you are not _in_ your body. This also means you do not have the abilities of your body. Basically, if the villagers figure out that you're not Hinata; they will find her, put her back in her body, and kill you. No more hot bod."

Hidan rolled his eyes, "You are so fucking dull. Honestly. Isn't that right, Pokester?" he called out to Neji, who was now smacking the tree with his open hand.

Neji nodded vaguely.

"Dude, are you a pimp or something? Is that tree your Goddamn ho?"

Neji promptly stopped and turned to stare at Hidan.

"What?"

"Seriously, dude. The way you're bitch-slapping that thing…," Hidan trailed off, shaking his head slightly.

"I…" Neji looked absolutely stumped, "I've never thought of it like that."

"Clearly. But, hey, they pimp-hand is strong with you," Hidan nodded.

"Thanks," Neji grinned, looking complimented in spite of himself.

"You guys are idiots," groaned Shino, "Seriously. Hidan, let's get back to training. You need to get this down, there's a big party tonight."

"Eh, what? Party?" Hidan replied quickly, feeling a flutter of panic in his stomach.

"Yeah, I didn't want to tell you, because I figured you'd freak out. The Hyuuga main branch is having a party for Hinata tonight. They're celebrating her becoming a woman."

"WHAT? Did you know about this?" Hidan shot at Neji, now fighting an earthquake of stress.

"Yeah," Neji shrugged, finally stopping his abuse of the tree, "It's a really big deal. Half of the ninja in the village are invited. And, Hinata, of course, is the guest of honor."

"You're fucking kidding me," Hidan said faintly, slowly backing up to lean against a large boulder.

"Wish I was," Shino replied, a single eyebrow raised, "The whole thing is going to be a complete disaster. Unless you can focus for more than three minutes, that is."

Hidan looked up at him with a frightened expression, "I can't do it," he breathed.

"Hey, relax," Shino frowned, "You'll be fine. You just need to concentrate a little harder. A couple more hours and you'll have her personality down perfectly."

"She is kind of one-dimensional," Neji chimed in, in an attempt to be helpful.

"No. You don't understand. I can't do this. I really can't," Hidan choked, an edge of desperation in his voice.

"Why not?" Shino asked, confused.

"I…hate parties," Hidan murmured, looking down, obviously embarrassed, "I'm just…not good with crowds."

"Agoraphobia?" Neji asked, furrowing his brow.

"Yeah," Hidan mumbled, "I've had it for, like, ever. I can't go to that party, I really can't."

"You don't exactly have a choice. Hinata has to be present. Unless you can get your bodies switched again by seven, you're going to that party," Shino stated shortly.

"I have until seven?" Hidan questioned, ignoring the rest of Shino's statement.

Neji and Shino nodded wordlessly.

"Oh, I'm going to find that fucking bitch and I'm going to get that damn broad out of my body," Hidan growled, standing, "Hopefully, I won't see you again," he said to the two boys in front of him, before turning and racing off into trees.

"Fuck," Neji said simply.

"Pretty much," Shino replied just as simply.

xXxXx

There was a very strange emotion working its way through the synapses of Kakuzu's brain. At first, he couldn't quite place it, and so he pondered the feeling as he strode towards the nearest Akatsuki hideout. He could hear Hinata tromping along behind him and vaguely wondered how she had possibly managed to become a ninja.

Kakuzu pondered and pondered, trying to figure out what the feeling was. He knew he had felt it before, years and years ago, but he just couldn't remember. It was a strange feeling. It made his esophagus twitch and his stomach clench. He was also inexplicably quite depressed.

It took a good ten minutes, but the name of the emotion did finally come to him. Guilt. That's what it was called. Kakuzu felt guilty. This embarrassed him deeply. Guilt was not something he often felt. He had managed to banish that emotion along with remorse and love back when his family had died. So, why was he feeling it now? It had to be because of the girl.

He tossed a quick glance over his shoulder to see the child staring up at the treetops with a small smile. Kakuzu felt his lips twitch and turned forward again abruptly. Now he was going to smile? This was absolutely ridiculous. He hadn't truly smiled for…well, not that long ago. Hidan made him smile quite often, not that the man knew it. Kakuzu always made a point of hiding his grins. But, this…this was strange. The smile he had just forced down wasn't the same sort of smile he had with Hidan. It was different. It was the sort of smile that he had had around his daughter.

But the guilt... He wanted to pretend that he had no idea why he felt this way, but he knew better. It was because of all the lying. This girl trusted him, she believed what he said. She believed that he was trying to help her, when, in actuality, he was simply using her. She was a Hyuuga, which was the only thing he had heard when she introduced herself. And Hyuugas were worth huge amounts of money on the black market. There was a large underground trade going around for Byakugan eyes. The only problem was that the Hyuugas had to be delivered alive. Kakuzu hated getting live bounties. They made noise and they caused all sorts of trouble. But, it was certainly worth the money.

He just couldn't shake the guilty feeling, though. Why did he care so much? She wasn't special in any way. She had average intelligence, below average ninja skills, and her personality wasn't exactly titillating. All he had to do was keep her from getting herself killed, get her switched back into her real body, and deliver her to the nearest bounty station. It was simple, if only he could get rid of this damn guilt.

He heaved an impressive inaudible sigh and continued stalking on, resisting the urge to shove his hands deep in his pockets.

"Konan."

"W-wha..oh! Um…right m-middle," Hinata chirped.

"Pein."

xXxXx

Hidan was running through the woods as fast as Hinata's little legs would take him. Which, admittedly, was not all that fast. And that was sad, considering he was the slowest member of the Akatsuki.

If his sense of direction was right, he was heading straight towards and Akatsuki hideout. He figured that Kakuzu would end up there eventually, dragging the girl along with him. Hidan knew his partner well enough to know that Kakuzu was going to sell her on the black market once he got her back in her original body.

He never made it to the hideout. A heavy blow to his back made him fall to the floor with a grunt.

"What the fuck?" he spluttered, sitting up and spitting out dirt.

"Sorry," said a male voice, "Shino told me to get you."

Hidan turned to see Naruto kneeling behind him, his blue eyes wide.

"Uh…it's cool," Hidan said quickly, trying to get into character.

"Why were you running, anyway?" Naruto asked, standing and holding out a hand.

After a moment's hesitation, Hidan took the hand and stood up. He brushed himself off, thinking about the time Kakuzu had walked on him talking to his dick to bring a blush to his face.

"I… was just working out," he stammered, staring at the ground and putting his forefingers together.

"Oh," Naruto grinned, "ok. Well, Shino said that you guys need to train."

Hidan nodded slowly, cursing Shino with every fiber of his being.

"Ok, thanks," he muttered finally, glowering.

"Hey…is something wrong?" Naruto asked, presumably finally noticing that Hinata was acting different. This made Hidan curse inwardly. As much as he hated to admit it, Shino was right. He should be training more, since he couldn't even fool Naruto.

"N-no. I'm ok," said Hidan, inwardly grimacing. He looked at Naruto and offered a small smile, before returning his stare to a rock, "I'm gonna go find Shino-kun."

"Ok," shrugged Naruto, without an ounce of suspicion.

Hidan swallowed hard.

"Thanks for getting me, Naruto-kun," he choked out.

"No problem," Naruto grinned, "Well, see ya!" He turned and positively bounced away.

Hidan shook his head with the vague sense that Shino would be proud.

xXxXx

Hinata felt her nerves tightening with every step. Not five minutes ago, Kakuzu had announced that they were only a few minutes from the base and that she had better mentally prepare herself. Hinata took a deep breath and counted down from ten to calm herself.

"We're here," Kakuzu said suddenly, stopping in front of a cave that was blocked by a large boulder.

Hinata's heartbeat skyrocketed, "O-ok," she stammered, her mouth going dry.

Kakuzu shot her a sideways glance, "You'll be ok," he said, slowly, "Just swear a lot and act like a douche."

Hinata nodded wordlessly.

"Ok, then. Let's go," Kakuzu muttered, shoving the boulder out of the way with a mighty shove and stepping through.

Hinata hesitated for a second and then followed him.

Before she saw anything, Kakuzu rolled the boulder back into place, causing the room to go almost entirely dark.

Slowly, her eyes adjusted and she saw that there were seven men and a single woman staring at her.

"Finally," a deep voice said impatiently, coming from a man with long blonde covering one of his surprisingly beautiful blue eyes, "You guys took fucking forever, yeah."

Hinata glanced down at the stone hand and noted which finger the man was standing on. Right index. So, this must be Deidara.

"Shut the fuck up, Deidara-_chan_," she said deliberately, praying that this was, in fact, Deidara.

"Oh, touchy, yeah," said the same man, grinning, "What happened? A girl turn you down?'

Hinata let loose a breath of relief, "Yeah right," she said casually, hopping up onto the stone finger that Hidan would use, "With a body like this, who the fuck would turn me down?"

She glanced quickly at Kakuzu and he gave her a small smile.

"Now that we've been joined by everyone," the sensual voice she had heard in her head before interrupted, "Could we please get to the matter at hand?"

Hinata glanced at the man who was speaking and felt her stomach shrivel up and die. The Akatsuki leader was easily the most intimidating man she had ever seen, with shaggy red hair and enough metal in his face to make a kunai. Yet, at the same time, he was strangely attractive. Hinata quickly glanced around and noted that, amazingly, they were all attractive in a way. All except Kakuzu, but she couldn't say for certain that he wasn't, as she had never seen his face. Or Hidan's for that matter.

"First off," Pein said, interrupting her thoughts, "Did you get Kimimaru?" he asked, turning to Kakuzu, who shook his head.

"No, he ended being more difficult than expected. And then Hidan decided to be an idiot and use up practically all his chakra trying to play with new jutsus," he glowered, glaring at Hinata.

Deidara snorted, "Why am I not surprised?"

Pein shot a look at Hinata and sighed.

"Let's just seal this thing," he said.

There was a general murmur of agreement and a slight shift as everyone raised their hands. All except Hinata, who realized too late what they were doing.

"What're you waiting for, Hidan?" growled the man standing on the left ringer finger. She glanced over and noted that he was both a giant and blue.

"Kisame," she thought, "Ah, nothing," she said hurriedly, lifting her hands. As she glanced quickly around, she noticed a man who could only be Uchiha Itachi staring at her.

"What the fuck do you want?" she snapped, trying her hardest to be Hidan-like.

Itachi said nothing, simply continuing to watch her.

"Hidan," Pein sighed, "Pay attention."

And with that, he started up the sealing jutsu. Hinata tried her hardest to contribute chakra, but the amount that was being drawn out of her was huge. She swallowed and glanced around again, to see if anyone else was struggling, but they all looked bored, with the exception of Itachi whose eyes were still trained on her.

For two long hours, Hinata struggled, barely managing to stay on her feet as they performed the seal. The others remained silent, appearing supremely relaxed. If they were having as much trouble as she was, they certainly weren't showing it. Pein even appeared to be dozing off, with his head fallen forward and his eyes shut lazily.

"This is weird," Kisame said finally, breaking the quiet, "Usually you'd have said something retarded to get attention by now, Hidan. Something wrong?"

"Ah, what?" Hinata replied, panicking, "No, I just don't have anything to say, ah, fuckface," she said hurriedly, stumbling slightly over the words.

Deidara laughed, "He _did_ get rejected, yeah," he grinned.

"What? No!" Hinata said quickly, "I'm just tired is all."

"Apparently. You're hardly contributing to this jutsu," Kakuzu muttered.

"You know perfectly well that I used up most of my chakra," Hinata replied hotly, trying her hardest not to stutter.

"Both of you shut up. You're disturbing Leader-sama," said the woman, Konan, shooting them a glare.

Hinata noticed that Pein, who had lifted his head, rolled his eyes when she spoke.

"Oh, you shut up," Sasori said, "At least they're giving us something to listen to."

"Leader-sama doesn't want to listen to it," Konan sniffed, jutting out her chin like an angry toddler.

"Don't assume things," Pein said, sounding annoyed, "You have no idea if they were bothering me."

"I'm so sorry," Konan said hurriedly, looking at him with wide eyes, "I just thought you wanted the quiet."

"What I want is for you to back off. How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not interested?"

Deidara started snickering at this and Konan looked crestfallen.

"Harsh," Kisame grinned.

"That was mean," the man with the orange mask, Tobi, said childishly.

"Where's Hidan?" Itachi asked quietly, his eyes still trained on Hinata.

"What?" Hinata replied quickly, her heart leaping in her throat, "I'm right here, obviously. You going f-fucking blind?" She winced as she stuttered.

"Hey, hey, no making fun of Itachi-san's handicap," Kisame lectured, but he was still smiling.

"You are not Hidan," Itachi said, ignoring the comment.

"I wish," Kakuzu snorted, "Unfortunately, he very much is."

"Yeah, man, I dunno what you're talking about," Hinata croaked nervously. With a frown, she cleared her throat, but the damage was done. Every person in the room was staring at her.

"Don't kill me," she whispered and then she fainted.

A/N: I had something planned with the whole party thing, but I've totally forgotten what it was…


	10. Chapter 10

Hinata woke slowly, but she did not move right away. Her entire body ached, for some inexplicable reason. She considered this for a moment and then realized that she had fainted while standing on top of a rather narrow stone finger. Judging by her splitting headache, she had fallen from the thing.

Hinata barely contained a groan when she heard Pein speaking from directly above her.

"Fucking hell, Kakuzu. How could you let this happen?" he hissed.

"With all due respect, Leader-_sama_, I didn't _let_ anything happen. Hidan did this all on his own," Kakuzu answered angrily.

"Why the hell didn't you stop him?"

"He was wishing on a star for Christ's sake! Why would I stop him from wishing on a star? Sure, it's lame, but it doesn't usually produce such negative consequences."

"Well, what do you suggest we do with her?" Pein snapped.

"I don't know… We can't kill her. Besides the fact that she currently has Hidan's immortality and can't die, it would be a waste to simply get rid of him; worse still to leave him in this girl's body to tell the whole world the secrets of the organization."

"We could use her as a replacement."

"Impossible. She'll never have Hidan's talent for killing."

"This is ridiculous. How do you get them back in the right bodies, yeah?" Deidara chimed in.

"Well, I have a theory…"

"By all means, share it," Pein commanded in a low voice.

"She said that she wished that she would become more assertive and confident. So, I came to the conclusion that, perhaps, if she achieves this goal, she'll go back to her original body."

"It is an idea… but what do you suggest we do?"

"Take her under our wing, so to speak. Train her. Help her become more aggressive."

"That seems like an awful waste of precious time, Kakuzu."

"I know. But if we want to get Hidan back, we have no other options."

"And do we want to get Hidan back?"

"…I never thought I'd say this, but I kind of miss him. Yes, I want him back."

For a second, there was silence, then Hinata heard the unmistakable sound of someone being clapped on the shoulder.

"Alright. Let's get Hidan back."

xXxXx

Hidan stared at himself in the mirror and admired how pretty he looked in his dress.

With a surprised shudder, he realized just how un-masculine that thought had been and he fixed a sullen scowl on his face.

It was a quarter to seven and guests would be arriving at anytime.

Hidan has slunk back to Shino and Neji after Naruto had caught up with him with a considerable amount of embarrassment. Neither of them made any comment on his running away, however, for which Hidan could not help but be grateful. Rather, the two simply continued teaching him how to be respectful and demure as if nothing had happened at all.

Now, Hidan was sure that he could be a proper lady. He hadn't actually sworn for at least an hour and he had kept his sneers to a bare minimum. He could do this.

"Hinata-san," sang the voice of one of the maids, "Your guests are arriving."

"Coming," Hidan called back, his stomach jumping with nerves. He turned back to the mirror and smoothed his dress in the front.

"You can do this," he whispered to himself, "You are smart, you are cool, you are sexy." He repeated these words a few times in a sort of mantra and then took a deep breath. "Right, let's party." And with that, he flashed himself a dazzling smile and headed down to greet his guests.

xXxXx

"Congratulations, Hinata-kun!" cried a pink-haired girl, hugging Hidan tightly.

"Thank you," he said warmly, hugging her back after fighting down a shudder of revulsion.

"Yeah, congrats, Hinata," Naruto grinned from behind the girl with pink hair.

"Thank you, Naruto-kun," Hidan replied, forcing a blush to his face with a thought of them time he had tripped and fallen into a pile of dog shit in front of a hot girl.

He clapped her on the shoulder and wandered away with the pink haired girl, whom he referred to as Sakura.

Hidan sighed as they retreated and silently thanked Jashin for the sedatives that Shino had slipped him earlier. If it wasn't for those, he would certainly have been in a state of panic from being surrounded by so many people.

"Nice job," muttered a voice close behind him.

Hidan jumped and spun around.

"Shino! Christ, don't sneak up on me like that," Hidan gasped, clutching his chest.

"Sorry," Shino shrugged, not looking sorry at all.

"It's ok," Hidan sighed, smoothing his dress for the seventeenth time, "What were you saying?"

"Oh, I was just commenting on the fact that you haven't made a single mistake. You're really getting this soft and kind thing down."

"Really? Thank you!" Hidan beamed, before he knew what he was doing. "Ah, I mean…duh," he said gruffly, flushing. He wasn't sure why, but, for some reason, it felt good to be praised by Shino. He felt something for the boy that he hadn't felt in a long time. If he remembered correctly, it was called friendship.

Shino grinned and thrust his hands in his pockets, "Here," he said, scrounging around for a second, "I got you something."

Hidan eyed him with a certain amount of distrust, "What?" he asked warily, concerned that it might be some sort of bug related paraphernalia.

"I got you something too," Neji chimed in as he walked up, "Here," he said, holding out a fist.

Hidan put a hand underneath and Neji let a silver chain drop into his hand. Hidan frowned and brought it closer to his face. It was a slim necklace with the Hyuuga seal hanging delicately from it.

Hidan was touched.

"Thanks," he said, after a long pause. He looked up to see Neji smiling at him and found himself smiling back. "Even if it is retardedly feminine."

Neji shrugged, "I thought you might want to embrace your inner lady," he winked.

Hidan chuckled at this and put the necklace on. It was quite pretty, even though Kakuzu would laugh his ass off if he saw him wearing it.

"Ah, my gift isn't as expensive," Shino muttered, lowering his head.

"So? Give," Hidan said, curious in spite of himself.

With plenty of embarrassment, Shino held out a Konoha forehead protector.

"This was my first one," he mumbled, not looking Hidan in the eye, "I thought you might want it to remind yourself of your time here."

"…Thank you," Hidan whispered, taking it from him, "Thanks a lot. Both of you," he said, looking at the two of them.

They both smiled awkwardly and shrugged as if to say that it was nothing.

This was when a drunken Gai reached around Hidan and felt up his breasts in an entirely inappropriate manner.

"How ya doin'?" he slurred into Hidan's ear.

Before he knew what he was doing, Hidan whipped around and punched Gai straight in the gut while screaming, "Don't touch me, you fucktard!"

In the silence that followed this outburst, Hidan realized his mistake.

"Oh…shit," he muttered.

xXxXx

Hinata opened her eyes and blearily peered around to find Kakuzu standing over her. Pein and Deidara had returned to their posts on the stone hands and were continuing with the sealing.

"You ok?" Kakuzu asked gruffly, helping her sit up.

"Yeah… I think so," Hinata said quietly, putting a hand to her throbbing head, "What's going on?"

"Well," Kakuzu started, glancing up at Pein, "We've decided that we're going to help you. We need to get Hidan back, so we're going to aid you to make that happen."

Hinata swallowed, not sure she wanted to know what their version of help was going to be.

"Oh," she choked out, "Uh, what are you going to do?"

"You're going to spend time training with me and Itachi. We're going to try to make you more aggressive."

Hinata nodded slowly, contemplating the fear building up in my stomach.

"Oh," she said again.

"We won't kill you," Kakuzu continued, "We're just going to teach you to stick up for yourself."

"Ok."

"Think you can handle that?"

"…Yeah." She smiled at him and she could have sworn that he smiled back.

xXxXx

Hidan found that he wasn't afraid of the crowd due to a sort of claustrophobia anymore. Now, he was simply afraid of them because the silence following his outburst was turning decidedly deadly. In his own body, this wouldn't have been a problem, but being unable to do the things he usually could, with the addition of no longer being immortal, put him in a precarious position.

"Uh, I can explain," he said nervously, peering around at the hardening faces.

"By all means, do so," Hinata's father said icily, his eyes narrowed.

Hidan swallowed and looked around the room at the seas of faces showing confusion, fear, and even anger.

"Ok, I know this sounds completely impossible, but I made a wish on a star a couple days back and I got put into this body," he paused to gauge the reaction and was unhappy to note that it was the exact scornful distain that he had expected, "I think she ended up in my body."

"So, you thought you'd just waltz in here and start living as Hyuuga. Wanted to get a tste of the good life?" a woman asked angrily, her face cold.

"No! I didn't want this! I just want to be back in my own body. " Hidan reaplied quickly, throwing up his hands in the universal sign of appeasement.

"Who are you?" someone from the crowd called.

"Ah…," Hidan licked his lips and swallowed again, "It's probably better if I don't say."

"Tell us who you are!" yelled Hinata's father, hands curling into fists and chakra glowing brightly about them.

Hidan cast this a nervous glance and felt his back automatically curve and his pointer fingers come together.

"My name is Hidan," he whispered.

He barely had time to turn and run before the crowd descended upon him.

xXxXx

Hidan was wheezing and had a stitch in his side, but he kept running for fear that if he stopped for even a second the crowd would catch up to him. Truthfully, he was surprised they hadn't, seeing as he wasn't a particularly fast runner in this body.

On and on he went, until, eventually, he collapsed to the ground and lay immobile except for the quick movement of his chest as he tried to suck in enough oxygen. The fact that he was still in Hinata's party dress didn't do much to help him.

After some time, he caught his breath enough to drag his exhausted body under a nearby overhang and hide partially behind a rock. It wasn't lost on him that he was starting to think of the body as his, something that would have disturbed him greatly if he wasn't so goddamn tired.

A cursory check told him he was alone and, unable to keep his eyes open any longer, he sank into a deep sleep.

It seemed that only minutes had passed before he found himself wide-eyed, staring at the rock above him and wondering what had awakened him so suddenly. He remained perfectly silent and listened cautiously, trying to pick up on whatever it was that had awoken him, but he heard nothing more than the chirping of bird s and the gentle hum of a bee flying past. As the time passed, Hidan slowly relaxed, until he once again found himself lightly dozing, the gentle rays of the now risen sun reaching underneath his hideout to softly tickle his face.

He moved his arm to place it under his head and was surprised to find that there was something in his hand. He looked at it and found himself face-to-face with Hinata, the only break being the indent of the leaf symbol pressed into the reflection's cheek. Hidan stared and, before he knew it, found himself curled into a ball, wailing, with Shino's forehead protector held tightly against his chest.

"Kakuzu," he blubbered incoherently through the tears, "I'm sorry," his sobs continued, "And I'm s-sorry for y-you to Hinata," he sniffed, "I'm s-sorry I fucked your life up."

Even through his tears Hidan found himself surprised at himself. He hadn't cried, especially not this hard, since he was five and lost his parents. After that, he had refused to let himself show sorrow and took it upon himself to become as vicious and spiteful as the man who raised him; the man who had killed his family.

"I want my body back!" he howled, throwing his head back and digging his fingers into the Earth, as if its energy could do this for him.

Alas, if it could, it did not.

"Quiet down!" hissed a voice, causing Hidan to suck in a startled breath and start choking on his own tears, "Ah, shit.," said the voice, sounding vaguely amused. A hard hand hit his back and Hidan looked up to see Shino crouched next to him.

"What are you doing here?" Hidan whispered, sitting up and brushing dirt from his dress, trying to pretend that he wasn't extremely embarrassed by the situation he had been found in.

"Well, we couldn't just leave you, could we? Neji and I spent way too much time trying to make you soft to have you run off on us now," Shino replied, nodding to the tree line, where Neji stood.

He smiled and nodded to them and Hidan nodded shakily back, now wiping the wetness from his cheeks and becoming acutely aware of how warm his face was.

"We got the crowd to lay off you, but you should have seen how pissed they were. It was crazy. Neji used his byakugan to find you and then we hurried over here, though we probably could have just followed the sounds of your dulcet tones," he finished, a slight smirk crossing his face.

Hidan found himself grow impossibly redder at the words, "Shut up," he mumbled, looking away.

Shino chuckled, "Hey, don't worry about it. I'd freak out if I was in your situation too."

Hidan looked at him gratefully, even though he knew it probably wasn't true.

"Either way, Neji and I have come to take you back. Everyone has promised to be real calm about this. They just want to talk to you and then they're going to try to help you get back into your own body. That's that."

Hidan coughed quietly, "They won't try to kill me?" he said, embarrassed that a man as strong as him even had to ask.

Neji, who had stepped closer, shook his head, "Not if I have anything to say about it," he said darkly.

"Well…thanks," Hidan replied after a paused, not sure if Neji's proclamation made him feel better or worse.

"Besides, people are already pretty scared of you," Shino said, unable to keep a small grin from appearing on his face, "They were already terrified once you said who you were, but then they got even more afraid when they realized that you broke two of Gai-sensei's ribs with that punch of yours."

Hidan felt his eyes widen again, "I did? Oops." He was surprised to feel a smidgen of guilt in his chest at the thought of how he had injured the man.

"So, what of it? Will you come back with us?" Neji asked, his pale eyes boring down at Hidan.

Hidan nodded slowly and stood, once again smoothing the front of his dress. A half-hearted smirk made its way across his face, "Let's do it," he drawled.

Shino clapped him on the shoulder, "That's the spirit. And, if it makes you feel better, you haven't sworn once since we found you."

Hidan considered this for a moment, "Huh," he said finally, not sure what to make of this. He supposed he should be annoyed that a crucial part of his personality had changed, but he all he could really think was that Kakuzu would be delighted, and an idiotic smile became suddenly plastered on his face.

"Right. Let's do it," he repeated forcefully, standing straighter and clenching his hand tightly around the forehead protector. Neji and Shino nodded and the three of them started back towards Konoha, with Hidan leading the way.

A/N: Uh…I was reading this story over…and it kind of sucks. Seriously. It is ridiculously inconsistent. Almost to the point where I want to stop writing it… Why do you guys like it so much? It's very poorly done…


End file.
